Me and My iPad: James Haskell

England flanker James Haskell on what's on his iPad - and why he has his own
app.

James Haskell

7:00AM BST 17 Sep 2011

Q What do you use your iPad for?

A I use it for everything - I'm one of those people who looks at a piece of kit and thinks if I'm not using it as much as possible then I'm not fulfilling its potential. So aside from using it for email and music, I use the cameras and I use it for movies a lot. Obviously the Apple apps are a big part of it, whether that's Pages for writing blogs when I'm on the go or Mail simply for organising most of my life.

Q What other apps do you like most?

A I use Sky Sports a lot for keeping up with the news, which is obviously really important professionally, and I use AV Player HD for any video types that aren't on the native Apple player - I watch a lot of videos for training as well as for pleasure, and then I use Kindle, for books you can't find elsewhere. I also really like Flipboard, which presents the web in a really elegant, easy to digest kind of way. Plus I've got my own iPhone app, although I don't spend ages looking at pictures of myself.

Q How did you come to have your own app?

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A A friend of mine that I've known for a while has helped me out with this a lot. For once in my life I've been on the edge of technology rather than catching up: - I was one of the first players to have my own app, and it links all the social media aspects, which are becoming more prevalent, and it lets me talk about a really wide range of things. So whether it's nutrition and the exercise side of things or just snippets behind the scenes - you can go in any direction you want to. I think it's important for players to show they're real human beings.

Q Do you use any apps that you think don't get the publicity they deserve?

A Aside from Mail, which is a bit of an unsung hero for me, I really like Osfoora HD. It's a fantastic Twitter app, and I think it's the best presented around, but not a lot of people know about it.

Q Who put you onto that?

A I've always prided myself on being an Apple geek, but it was (Gloucester flanker) Andy Hazell who suggested it. There's a hierarchy of geeks - but my commitment to the cause is sometimes marred by playing and training. You need a serious commitment to reading internet forums to keep it up.

Q Why does Apple appeal to you?

A It's pretty painful to use the internet in a desk chair too long in my room here in New Zealand, where WiFi is not all that widespread. But you can project WiFi using a MacBook. There are things you wish for and lo and behold it can do it.

Q Is there anything that disappoints you about technology?

A I think people quite often download apps and think they're going to make you a genius - I downloaded iElectribe for instance, and I haven't become a genius on drum synthesisers yet. But I don't think you can legislate for that, even if a better manual wouldn't go amiss.

So that's disappointing, and the lack of an all-encompassing training app - but I've taken a look at that myself!